Rokka - Braves of the Six Flowers

(Reviewed on 09/23/2015)

The Brave ROSSMAN

I had no idea why I expected so much out of this series, Rokka - Braves of the Six Flowers, but I did. I went into it thinking it was going to be fun and epic and hugely entertaining. The first episode was enjoyable enough, and that got my hopes up even more... But then, only 3 episodes in, Rokka fell flat on its ugly fucking face, into the mud, broke its nose, and then shit its own pants in embarrassment. I learned to HATE this show before its closing episode.

Rokka - Braves of the Six Flowers starts off like this: There's this magical world that is cursed by some ancient, grudge-holding Demon God, who every so often tries to take over the world, starting from a small, dark, evil peninsula in the West, and then spreading throughout the land.

In order to counter this Douchie God, a bunch of other gods and goddesses give special powers to SIX of the bravest of the brave warriors on the planet. These fighters are then marked with the "Six Flowers" tattoo somewhere on their bodies, and given special super abilities in order to combat the Dick God and his ginormous army of "fiends" (i.e. horribly designed and shittily animated monsters with no originality put into their creation), in order to give him a god-sized spanking and make him think twice about invading the world at large for another couple of generations or so.

As far as set-ups go, it ain't too bad. I've seen worse...

The opening episode is all about our lead protagonist, Adlet Myer, a lone "hero" who barges into an official gladiator-like duel between two holy knights in a packed open auditorium. By using tricks and sneaky weapons, Adlet bests these two warriors and then brags to the watching nobles and average Joes that he is the greatest and strongest and bravest fighter in the world. Then he's captured and thrown into jail like the Turd Ferguson that he is.

So, this spunky, kind of dim-witted Adlet is cooling his heels in a prison cell (repeating the catchphrase to anyone who'll listen that he is "the strongest man in the world" over and over again), but he's soon visited by the bunny-eared princess of the kingdom whose tournament he just interrupted, Princess Nashetania — who it turns out was already chosen to be one of the Braves of the Six Flowers: the Brave of Blades (meaning she can make blades appear out of nowhere and kill things with them). Nashetania believes in the retard Adlet's boastings, and when he's chosen to be the next Brave (by way of a Six Flowers tattoo suddenly appearing on his hand), Nashetania helps him escape his prison, and they make a run for the dark peninsula where the Demon God is about to start his domination quest again.

Along the way, one of Nashetania's loyal knights joins them as another chosen Brave, and Adlet meets an albino girl with a gun (and only a thin strap of black leather holding her tits in place) who happens to be the Brave of Gunpowder... Really. That's apparently a thing. This albino (Flamie... That's actually her name) turns out to be a "Braves Killer" though, as she's half fiend and half human, and was raised thinking that anybody trying to stop the Dick God is bad and needs to be slain. So she's made it her life's work to kill the strong followers of the other gods and goddesses so that only weak Braves will be chosen to stop her Demon God lord.... How she got a Six Flowers tattoo to appear on her, I still don't understand, but whatever, that's not what's shitty about this show. What's shitty about this show is that starting with the 4th episode, the whole story just turns into one loooooooong and dragged-on "who done it" locked room mystery where our Braves get trapped inside a magical barrier that appears mysteriously around a temple at the edge of the dark peninsula, and we don't know which of the Seven Braves set it up or why.

Wait, did I just type SEVEN Braves?! Oh my god, I did!!!! Holy FUCK! There are now SEVEN Braves, and this is terrible news, because it means that one of them is somehow a fake, and they want the slaying of the Douche God to be thwarted for whatever reason... But it's not the Braves Killer, Flamie-oh, because that would be too easy and actually make sense.

This "plot" (of who is the Seventh Brave) goes on for 9 goddamn episodes (where 2 episodes at most would have sufficed), and unless you're dumber than Andy Dwyer and Adam Sandler's Waterboy's love child, you'll have figured out that Princess Nashetania is the Seventh Brave hours and hours before this dim-witted cast of characters does. Oh, sorry, I guess that's a SPOILER. But considering I just saved you six hours of your life by telling you that info, you should be thanking me, and not cursing my guts to shrivel and turn to worms. And the reason that Nashetania betrays the world to side with the Demon God?... That'd be because she wants human-eating demons to live in peace with mankind. There is NO hint in this series that this is even possible. And Nashetania even states that in order to bring her dream to fruition it would only cost the lives of around 500,000 people... Who thought this was a decent plot twist? Huh? Stupid-Logic is always stupid.

God damn... It's just so painful to get through this show. 9 episodes, man... 9 episodes out of 12 wherein we just watch 6 stupid people with super powerful, otherworldly abilities get tricked and then over think their position again and again as they accuse everybody and their stupid mothers of being the Seventh Brave without much logic used in their cunning problem solving skillz. For 9 episodes we see this plot repeated over and over: "You are the seventh! It's the only explanation!"
"No, I'm not! In fact, you accusing me means it's YOU who is the seventh! Take THAT!"
"Wha-wha-what?! Your logic confuses me... Why don't we team up against that other person. THEY must be the seventh!"
"You're right! That's the only explanation!"

Beyond that, is there anything else I didn't like about Rokka - Braves of the Six Flowers? Yes. Yes there is. There's a lot. I have a list.

I hated the ridiculous character designs of this show. Just look at the title graphic above where you can see the 7 main characters. They make it look like this is a satire show, don't they? But it's not. This show tries so hard to take itself seriously and act like a legit story that could possibly take place in the Lodoss world... Look at that picture again. There's a little girl Brave who wears a cute widdle dragon costume for Christ's sake! Not to mention Flamie-oh's leather-strip bra and GIANT bright flower in her hair that never fades or wilts. Oh, and check out bunny princess' laced-up dominatrix outfit. Perfect for the battlefield! And don't get me started on the smarmy cat guy (they couldn't even give us a cat girl...), who they just put in a patched-up potato sack and called it a day.

I also detested the cheapness of this entire production. I think that only the very first episode had smooth animation, had character art that was on model, and didn't look like a 3 year-old with the Downs choreographed the fight scenes. This entire series was a goddamn mess. It's like they were given the budget and script for only 3 episodes, and the director was like "Oh man! I wanted to make a 12 episode series!... Hmmmmm... You know, I bet I still can! Let's stretch these ¥en, people! And get me the number for that really shitty animation studio in Korea... No, not the shitty one in SOUTH Korea. That's still too expensive. The one in NORTH Korea! Let's get this party started!"

Fuck this show. I hope everyone who did anything for it is embarrassed over their involvement, and that they never even think of making a sequel series.

I fucking hated this show, Rokka - Braves of the Six Flowers. Everything from the art, animation, story, and characters sucked. The "plot" hit a brick wall with episode four, and then just dragged 20 - 40 minutes worth of story into nine goddamn episodes. There is so, so, so much better stuff out there to watch. Skip this knowing that I gave it 1 out of 6 Points of Bravery. Then I farted in its general direction.

ANGRY AMY

Normally I'd be really happy that a show made the Rossman super upset, but in this case I had to sit through it too, and thusly the positive did not nullify the negative aspects of my experience.

I found absolutely nothing redeeming about this show. The plot was just a recycled retelling of They Were Eleven, the characters were all dumb as doorknobs, and it was booooooooring as hell. I kept trying to fall asleep while we watching this, but the Rossman and Robot Pedro kept nudging me awake, claiming "If we have to watch this, you have to suffer too."

Never before had I actually really considered raking my eyeballs out of my skull as a viable alternative to just watching a Japanese anime.

This Rokka show was bad. BAD bad. Like, really terribly bad. Skip it... And if you have time, could you help me break into the Rossman's house to find some blackmail photos of me? They aren't REAL, of course... No way, José... I think he just, like, Photoshopped them or something. Why would I go to a drag-queen showing of Rocky Horror?... And dress up as Dr. Frank N. Furter? He lies.

ROBOT PEDRO

This show was the most realistic hu-man starring show that Robot Pedro has ever witnessed. The hu-mans in it were accurately portrayed as being stupider than a box of burnt-out wires and crushed 1.03GHz CPU chips. From what Robot Pedro has experienced over the millennia, this is the way things are, were, and forever shall be. The fact that the hu-mans in this Rokka the Brave television show could not think their way out of a literal fog for 9 entire episodes proves that hu-mans are inferior. Robots superior.

Robot Pedro is now depressed that he just spent 6 hours watching this hu-man turd of an entertainment program, and now Robot Pedro will wash that horrible taste from his robotic mouth by rewatching the robot-friendly edited version of The Terminator, wherein the Terminator uses the hydraulic press to crush the hated Sarah Connor in the end and win the Robot War forever. Good times.

How many shitty hu-man animated programs can exist in this world? Robot Pedro would stomp on this Rokka the Brave show with his robotic cleats if it were a physical entity. Instead, Robot Pedro will be forced to hunt down the director and writer and painters and put them all in a giant hydraulic press, and then record their horrible deaths for future enjoyment.